Yeah we have made a weird list now we are just ordering it and I am really impressed with everyone’s blurbs that are better than the text of any top whatever list.
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I have been having fun trying to rank the games by one stupid criteria like: Squid Collection.
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Was going to refute this and then I remembered that the “dropped face first on a star dropper” incident I mentioned in another thread happened specifically because I revealed a friend’s deepest secret (that he liked wrestling)
Umihara Kawase was the game I showed my video-game-hater grandma which changed her mind about video-games. She even played it a little.
Umihara Kawase let’s you play a girl who gets extra lives by collecting pink backpacks.
Umihara Kawase is the best game in it’s series.
Umihara Kawase has shockingly good and fun physics for the fishing-line you use to move around.
Umihara Kawase was developed by an extremely small studio and published by a television station.
It is basically an indie game that snuck onto the Super Famicom.
VOTE
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I should probably admit that I never played Umihara Kawase (any of them) as every time I considered it I was reminded that it is a very hard game that you have to start from the very start each time and I think I am past the point in my life when I can deal with that. If I played it when it was current I’d have likely enjoyed the first third or so of it that I’d never manage to get past.
While this is technically true, you can practice any field you’ve reached in practice mode, which is how I built up my confidence in being able to push further into the game. Think of later fields as areas you unlock by mastering what you’ve already unlocked.
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I actually prefer Shun to the first game! I’m probably an outlier in this but I think Shun is just a straight up improvement on the original
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Shun is also good!
I didn’t like the tweaks to the fishing line. The shorter fishing-line limits your options a little.
It does look good, and it runs smoother then the original version of Umihara Kawase.
I like the original best, but Shun is good too!
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I like the trade off of a shorter but bouncier fishing line because it plays well to my style (start a swing, pull in the fishing line at the apex of a swing to build a lot of velocity in the tangential direction) but I get that perspective
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This is nice but there appears to be a large number of stages in the game so when it gets to the point where I have to go through 20 stages to unlock 21, likely die, go practice 21 for a while, start over from 1, likely fail to get back to there first run, maybe have to go back to practice to brush up on whatever is crossing me up, start from 1 again, make it to 21 again, hopefully not fail on 21, unlock 22, fail again and start over… I just got weary typing that all out. I still got enough left in me to deal with some hard games, but you gotta at least give me something beyond “you died, start over from the start”. Even those crazy hard shmups often give you an extra continue every couple hours. A friend of mine tried playing through it last year (my fault, long story) and dropped it on day one after twenty or so lives and little if any progress, hence I worry years of familiarity with the series might be obscuring how difficult/approachable the games might be.
I shoulda wrote this before arguing on behalf of the Aki wrestling games, now it reads like an attack and I can’t figure out how to tweak it not to be 
It is possible all of this is me trying to avoid considering that Bubble Bobble/Baba is You battle for as long as possible.
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Second round, and second round of opinions…
REZ wins over Final Fantasy VI
I have actually played only FFVI. It’s a good game, although it does not reaches the heights of Chrono Trigger and other JRPGS.
Rez is in my must play list.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening TIES WITH Mirror’s Edge
I abstain. I played both and I don’t like either. Mirror’s Edge is boring in my opinion.
Zelda LA: probably only the last 1 or 2 dungeons are somehow interesting. Everything else is boring in this game. I must add that, as gorgeous as the remake is, it takes away the only interestning part of the game (unsettling feeling, reused assets from Mario games). There are much better Zeldas and Zelda-likes.
SUPER MARIO 3D LAND wins over Sky Odyssey
I have played only Super Mario 3D Land and I consider it one of the best Mario Games.
I will probably play Sky Odyssey at some point, even if it’s not my kind of genre, out of respect and interest, because of how it’s been described here.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS wins over Outrun
I played casually Outrun as a kid. Honestly I wonder why it should be in this kind of challenge. I have not played FF Tactics, but it’s in my must play and it’s a game I know I would love.
BABA IS YOU wins over Bubble Bobble
I admit Baba is you is a great game. Sometimes it could feel a bit as busywork, and it’s possible I will never finish it, but I respect it, it’s original, and I like to go back to it periodically.
Bubble Bobble… I didn’t think to mention it in this list unless somebody did so. It’s a very nice little game, I played it when I was 7. I don’t think I will replay it, anyway.
This is a very nice bracket, but ultimately, Baba wins.
UMIHARA KAWASE wins over any Wrestling representative
Yes.
GUNSTAR HEROES wins over Yume Nikki
Every time I read someone not liking Yume Nikki, feeling bored about its graphics and pointless exploration, I feel less alone in the world.
DISCO ELYSIUM wins over SILENT HILL 2
Not having played either (yet) I expect Disco Elysium to be my cup of tea, much more so than Silent Hill 2.
KLONOA: DOOR TO PHANTOMILE wins over Silent Hill
Klonoa is my favourite platformer. It plays great, has wonderful music and aesthetics. Dreamy, poetic game.
I haven’t played Silent Hill, and I believe it’s probably too old for me to want to try it. I might go directly for SH2 and 3 at some point.
ELEVATOR ACTION RETURNS wins over DOTA 2
I haven’t played either, but I do plan to play Elevator Action Returns soon. It seems great. Dota 2 belongs to a family of totally uninteresting games to me.
SUPER MARIO BROS. wins over Animal Crossing
I like and respect Super Mario Bros. I am not sure if it should belong to this list, but it’s a great game.
Animal Crossing for me is boring and useless, as much as other stuff like The Sims.
OUENDAN / ELITE BEAT AGENTS series wins over Earth Defence Force series
Elite Beat Agents is great. I haven’t played EDF series, not sure if I ever will.
Dragon Quest 3 TIES WITH The Legend Of Zelda
To be honest, neither should belong to this list.
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My copy of Sky Odyssey has arrived. My child self is jealous. This forum really is the gift that keeps on giving <3
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I don’t think you sound like you’re on the attack, it’s all good. The game has a lot of stages but they’re not linearly arranged. For what its worth, my route to beating Shun that I described earlier was only 9 stages long, with the first 3 stages being so heavily practiced that I could be completely consistent with them (and the last two stages being ones that I hadn’t seen before).
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Super Mario 3D Land vs Sky Odyssey
I do love the tactility of 3D Land’s environments. It’s full of objects that I want to squeeze and chew on. But the level design feels so rote, like a conveyor belt of platforms, spikes, and goombas.
Sky Odyssey reminds me of the flying circus in my hometown, where I would watch wing walkers dangle above me and pilots aim their propellers to pop balloons. It reminds me of how truly fascinating the real world is.
I have never played Sky Odyssey but just a couple of seconds of footage from it inspires me more than playing the whole of Super Mario 3D Land ever did.
Decision: Sky Odyssey
Bonus footage of a flying circus, complete with schmaltzy patriotism
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I feel like I need to make a passionate defense for Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
It’s one of my favorite games, maybe my favorite on the PS1.
It’s not mechanically complex or even too mechanically demanding. Speedruns usually just look like playing the game normally because of it, there’s no super high skill ceiling, but it’s just a really good ride from beginning to end that doesn’t waste your time. It’s consistently engaging without ever being overwhelming. It’s incredibly approachable and accessible without ever growing stale or boring. It’s sort of a beginner’s platformer that veterans can still be engaged by. And if you want to spend more time with it, there’s rescuing all the villagers, there’s collecting all the crystals, and there’s the extra stage. Plus time attacking the extra stage! It’s all completely optional and I love that. I love that the game doesn’t overstay its welcome but just has something for you if you want to hang around more with it.
And I think that the reason why it doesn’t ever grow stale is that it consistently knows how to throw interesting things at you to make the adventure still feel “adventurous”. I think that a big part of it is the environments. It uses the “2.5D” to keep making you feel like you’re traversing huge environments in interesting ways, while mechanically often just being a linear platformer. It does a lot to really give you a feeling of these environments being fleshed out and that you’re really traversing through all of it instead of everything feeling flat, game-y, or that you’re just going through a thin section of a much larger and more interesting environment. If you see something cool in the background, you’re probably going to run all over it later in the level - see the windmill at the very beginning of the first level, where near the end of the level you get to run all around it.
Also, the levels are divided into different kingdoms, and you get to feel a strong sense of each of the kingdoms’ identity and aesthetics. The levels emphasize how each kingdom have their different structures and architecture, and even levels set in the same Kingdom can feel very different to one another. Forlock is just so different in atmosphere and feel from the first time you visit to when you visit after going through Jugpot. And then you get to go through this whole incredible mechanic tower in it later on that almost feels like a subversion of what you’d expect from a village of tree-top houses from your first visit.
Adding to that great sense of space, the story and dialogue also does a lot to breathing life into it and keeping you engaged, raising the stakes and shifting the tone appropriately from the carefree feel of the beginning of the game, to the tenseness and despair as things get more serious. It never gets in your way, it just adds more texture and a little bit of a sense of place and culture and life to the world you’re going through so that it doesn’t feel too game-y or lonely. It’s so little and slight, especially compared to nowadays. A couple of NPCs that you have to rescue to progress through a couple different stages, a few lines of dialogues here and there either at the beginning or end of the level, sometimes both, like I said, very unobtrusive, yet it does so much. Characters that feel one-off then re-appear later on too, just to tie everything together in a nice bow and make the adventure feel larger than just you.
Spoilers for the story down below!
And then there’s the ending! It’s kinda out of nowhere and it almost feels cheap but the pre-rendered cutscene, the music and the voice acting are tailor-made to make you cry. It’s this bittersweet feeling that feels like a really good pay-off to how emotionally invested you’ve became in these characters and worlds thanks to how well-balanced and well-paced the game is in just giving you enough to care about without, again, getting in the way of the action and playing the game, or showing their hand too much, hinting at what they’re gonna do. I feel like Klonoa is a really fantastic example of a game with a symbotic relationship between its cutscenes and the action. One improves the other instead of one getting in the way of the other and it all comes together into something cohesive and grander than its parts. I love it.
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I was leaning toward Silent Hill to get the series vs series matchup but you’ve just secured a vote for Klonoa.
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I might ultimately have to go with Klonoa myself, as long as I vote for Silent Hill 2. One of my favorite things about Klonoa is the dynamic music that alternates versions of the same song depending on whether you are outdoors or indoors (and also based on other things later on). The sort of thing you also get in Axelay and R-Type Delta.
I think I will listen to Klonoa music for the rest of my work day today. (I came across some fan albums a few years ago, in addition to the original soundtracks.)
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Yes, I’m sold on the Klonoa vote even though I have a weird nostalgic attachment to both Klonoa 1 and SH1 due in part to playing them both at roughly the same time as a 12-year old recovering from a major surgery. Maybe to me they embodied the adolescent emotional highs and lows that I managed with both games, well, video games in general at the time. I think you described really well Klonoa 1’s gut punch ending out of nowhere and the idea of a dream persona emotionally manipulated into saving the world by fake memories created by his only friend really stuck with me. It’s a really hard vote but I think apt to pair them together as clashing PS1 dreamworlds.
I think some spitefulness out of SH3, my favorite Silent Hill, not making it on the list also plays a part in my not voting for SH1. Though I remember being weirdly empathetic to Alessa’s situation as her being trapped in a hospital bed in pain synced up with my living conditions when I played it.
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I’m genuinely surprised to see so many people choosing gunstar heroes over yume nikki.
I mean gunstar heroes is great! The kick is the best, the weapon combo system is so cool, and each stage had some kind of interesting set piece or mechanic, the dice game is so mean I love it. Its one of the best experiences I’ve had with a run and gun.
Yume Nikki though… Yume Nikki is a game about dreams that I still dream about to this day, a decade after I first played it.
The presence of its worlds are so powerful they invade the deepest parts of my consciousness, the art spectacular, but simple enough to leave room for interpretation and extrapolation. The absurd amount of hidden areas and random triggers ensure that the world always feels like its responding to the player, but always in a way that’s indifferent to their motives.
I’m not sure how to best describe it but the games greatest strengths come from an absence of detail in a way. The music for example, its all loops of 30 seconds or less, but it never overstayed its welcome, it invites you to imagine more detail than its simple melody actually provides. I love this remix album that fleshes out the soundtrack into longer fuller songs, it feels like the game was inviting that from the beginning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdsF_kTDuJg&list=PL20B35283715BF385
Like the thing is built in RPGMaker! It has a battle system that never gets used! It actually has quite a lot of assets that are inaccessible, and so many events that most playthroughs will never come across, its mysterious but also kind of personal, like you’re wandering through someone else’s dreams, eventually you’re wandering though your own dreams.
Even now I like to come back to it sometimes on nights when I can’t sleep, thats the best time to experience it I think
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